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Downgrading your plan ​

Downgrades work differently from upgrades. We don't switch you immediately — instead, the change takes effect at your next renewal date, so you don't lose paid days on the higher tier.

Downgrade flow

The downgrade flow ​

  1. Go to Billing.
  2. In the Choose a plan section, click the lower tier you want.
  3. A confirmation dialog appears summarizing what will change — new member cap, features you'll lose, the effective date.
  4. Confirm.
  5. The plan tile updates immediately with a Scheduled — takes effect [date] badge. Your current plan still shows as active until that date.
  6. On your next renewal date, the cron job processes the change: charges the new (lower) price, swaps plan_id, sends a Plan changed email.

Until the effective date, nothing visible changes — you keep your current member cap, features, and limits.

TIP

Why not switch immediately? You've already paid for the current period at the higher tier. If we switched right away, you'd lose access to features you've already paid for. Waiting until renewal is fairer and matches how most SaaS billing works.

What if I'm over the new plan's cap? ​

This is the trickiest part of downgrading. If your current member count exceeds the lower plan's member cap, the system shows a warning during the confirmation dialog with two options:

Option A — Proceed anyway. The downgrade still schedules. On the effective date your plan switches, but your existing members are never deleted or hidden. The cap only blocks new member creation from that point forward. You're effectively frozen at your current member count until you either upgrade again or remove members down to the cap.

Option B — Cancel the downgrade. The dialog closes, you stay on the higher tier, and you can plan member removal first. Bulk member removal lives under Members → Bulk actions.

WARNING

Cap-overage doesn't cause data loss, but it does freeze member growth. If you're a church that runs an annual visitor-conversion campaign, time downgrades carefully — you don't want to hit the cap right before a big visitor push.

What you lose ​

Per-tier features unlock on Growth and above, so downgrading to Starter or Free will hide:

  • Advanced reporting — reports v2 widgets and custom-period drill-down become unavailable. Existing data is untouched; the chart cards just don't render until you upgrade again.
  • Custom branding — your custom logo on emails reverts to the GCM default sender. Logos on the public site stay.
  • Priority support — your support tier drops to standard.
  • Multi-campus hierarchy (Network → Growth/Starter) — the N-level hierarchy collapses to a single level on display. Your org_units data isn't deleted — re-upgrading restores the visual hierarchy.
  • API access (Network → lower) — API keys stop working at the effective date. You get a 14-day notice email before they expire.
  • PowerSync (offline mode) — devices in offline mode reconnect to online mode at the effective date. Pending offline changes still sync; they just don't queue any new offline writes.

The data behind these features is never deleted by a plan change. You can re-upgrade later and everything snaps back.

Downgrading to Free ​

Going all the way to Free has two extra consequences:

  1. 50-member cap. If you have more than 50 active members, see the cap-overage section above.
  2. No card on file required. We don't remove your card automatically — it sits there in case you re-upgrade — but you don't have to maintain a card on the Free tier.

You're not charged anything on Free. The subscription stays in active status; next_billing_date is set to one billing period out as a renewal anchor for re-upgrades, but no charge runs.

Canceling a scheduled downgrade ​

You can change your mind anytime before the effective date.

  1. Go to Billing.
  2. The plan tile with Scheduled badge has a Cancel change link below it.
  3. Click it; the downgrade is removed. Your plan stays on the current tier and renews normally.

You can also schedule a different downgrade — clicking another lower tile while a downgrade is already scheduled replaces it with the new one.

Changing your mind to an upgrade ​

If you've scheduled a downgrade but you've decided you want to upgrade instead:

  1. Click the new (higher) tier you want.
  2. Confirm the upgrade. This immediately cancels the pending downgrade and charges you for the higher tier.

You can't have an upgrade and a downgrade scheduled at the same time — the latest action always wins.

After the effective date ​

On renewal day, the cron job:

  1. Charges the new (lower) plan's price to your card on file.
  2. Updates plan_id and recomputes member_limit on your org.
  3. Logs the change in payment_history with the new amount.
  4. Sends a Plan changed email confirming the new tier and the next renewal date.
  5. Triggers the module-availability refresh so locked routes start returning 403 on next navigation.

If the charge fails on downgrade day, the subscription enters past_due and follows the standard dunning flow. The downgrade itself is treated as committed — you don't get put back on the higher tier just because the charge for the lower tier failed.

Common questions ​

Will I be refunded for the difference? No. Downgrades take effect at next renewal so there's nothing to refund — you got the higher tier for the days you paid for it, then the new tier kicks in at billing time. No partial credits.

Can I downgrade twice in a row? Yes — Network → Growth → Starter scheduled in succession will run as two changes on two renewal dates. Or schedule Network → Starter directly and skip the intermediate step.

What about staff seats? Plans cap members, not staff users. If a tier has a staff_limit set (some custom plans do), the same cap-overage rules apply — staff in excess of the new cap keep working but you can't invite new ones until you upgrade or remove staff.

Does archiving members reduce my member count for cap purposes? Soft-deleted members in the recycle bin don't count toward the cap. Archive (lost / inactive) members do count — they're still active records. To get under a cap you need to actually soft-delete the members from the bulk-actions page.

Next steps ​